ISLAND BANANAS

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 43, 15 November 1926, Page 7

ISLAND BANANAS

DUNEDIN’S DIFFICULTIES. '. , Dominion Special. .' Dunedin, November 13. One of the 1 reasons given lecently for the refusal to ship bananas direct from the Islands to. Dunedin was that the merchants here are not .prepared to give buying orders,, they being only willing to take -the fruit on consignment, which means,-of course, that tlie shippers would have tp take, the lisk of the market, and if the bananas arrived in an inferior condition the Island people would have.to stand.the' loss. In reply to this a leading Dunedin fruit retailer states that under the present transhipping system fruit could not land, in Dunedin in perfectly sound condition, in addition to which transhipment charges increased the landing cost tremendously. A direct steamer would mean a saving of 25 per cent, on landed costs, and this would enable the local fruiterers to retail, bananas cn an aver--age of twelve for is' as against.the ruling price of eight for Is. Not only would there be a saving of 25 per cent, on landed costs, but the greatest saving would he on the wastage which iccurs on the trip down-the-coast. The retailer went on to say that if the want of straight out ..buying orders was the trouble nt Fiji, this could be remedied, as Dunedin firms were prepared to purchase bananas there and establish letters of credit for that purpose. : AH that was necessary was a direct steamer which would double flip consumption of bananas in the South Island end at the same time put Dunedin on . the same basis as the North Island, instead of, as has been the case for many years, filling the pockets of the North Island •middlemen at the expense of the South -Island consumers.